Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is aware that synacthen has recently increased in cost from £2.70 per vial to £38 per vial; and if he will make a statement.

The Department agreed the list price increase for Synacthen in March 2015.

The previous Pharmaceutical Price Regulation Scheme, the current 2019 Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access and our statutory branded medicines pricing scheme all have detailed arrangements for how companies can request an increase to the National Health Service list price for a product.

Companies must comply with the rules of the relevant scheme when making a price increase request and all price increase requests must receive Departmental approval before they can take effect.